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Technology leadership is at the heart of our business strategy for lubricants. This translates into environmental benefits. Our range of premium lubricants for vehicles, for example, use friction-reducing additives and engine-cleansing technology to improve vehicle fuel efficiency by up to 5%. That saves customers money on their fuel bills and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Our advanced industrial lubricants help make machines run more efficiently and help some operate for up to twice as long between maintenance stops. We have also developed specialised lubricants that help energy producers reduce the cost of wind power by increasing the reliability and efficiency of their turbines. Our Shell Tellus TX hydraulic oil, for example, allowed one wind power operator in the Netherlands to extend the time between servicing from six months to over two years, while our Shell Omala HD gearbox oil can reduce energy losses by up to 15%.
In 2007, we expanded our Shell Naturelle range of biodegradable industrial lubricants for use in environmentally sensitive areas. Natural processes in soil or water readily break down these low-toxicity lubricants if accidental spillages occur, reducing their impact on the environment compared to conventional industrial lubricants.
We are investing heavily in high-performance lubricants. The Pearl GTL plant, currently under construction in Qatar (see Sustainable transport), will produce more than 1 million tonnes a year of high-quality base oils to make lubricants. The oils, together with our expertise in blending them, will allow us to make lubricants that reduce friction, helping many more drivers improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions.
Working with Wal-Mart
Shell is helping Wal-Mart – the world’s biggest retailer – reduce packaging waste from a number of the products we supply. We’ve found ways to cut the total packaging needed for our lubricants sold in Wal-Mart stores in the USA by 900 tonnes a year, a saving we are now also making available to all our US customers. We have reduced the amount of cardboard packaging in our range of car-care products sold in Wal-Mart stores in the US by a further 1,000 tonnes a year – and are making this standard for all our US customers too.
It is not only our packaging we are changing. We have also begun to replace PVC with recyclable plastic in a range of other car-care products that we sell – both at Wal-Mart and other US retailers – like our car wash bottles and seat cover boxes. We are reformulating some products – like our wheel-cleaning liquid – to use more environmentally responsible ingredients. And to save fuel, we are improving our supply and distribution system, for example by making sure our delivery trucks are full when they set off to make their rounds. As most of Wal-Mart’s stores, and the majority of our car care business, are in the USA, we have focused most of our efforts there to date. But we are also introducing a new lubricant bottle, which uses less plastic, for all our customers outside the USA, including Wal-Mart’s international stores. We expect this will reduce plastic consumption in our lubricants business outside the USA by almost 10%, or 2,200 tonnes a year.
